In this Sept. 28, 2017 file photo, a rescue worker places the body of a Rohingya Muslim boy, who died after their boat capsized in the Bay of Bengal as they were crossing over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, onto a stretcher near Inani beach, in Cox's Bazar district, Bangladesh. Of the 80 refugees believed to have been on the boat, only 24 are known to have survived. Police collected 23 corpses from the shore. The rest, mostly children, are missing and presumed to have drowned. They were part of the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War, a colossal tide of more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims whose homes had been torched by Buddhist mobs and soldiers. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)

In this Sept. 28, 2017 file photo, policemen and rescue workers carry the body of a Rohingya Muslim, who died after their boat capsized in the Bay of Bengal as they were crossing over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Inani beach, in Cox's Bazar district, Bangladesh. Of the 80 refugees believed to have been on the boat, only 24 are known to have survived. Police collected 23 corpses from the shore. The rest, mostly children, are missing and presumed to have drowned. They were part of the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War, a colossal tide of more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims whose homes had been torched by Buddhist mobs and soldiers. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)

In this Oct. 30, 2017 photo a fisherman adjusts his waist floats near the site where a boat carrying Rohingya refugees capsized on Sept. 28 at Inani beach, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. The boat capsized just 1,000 feet (300 meters) from shore, taking the lives of at least 50 people, most of them children, in the deadliest tragedy of its kind since the crisis exploded in late August. They were part of the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War, a colossal tide of more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims whose homes had been torched by Buddhist mobs and soldiers. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

This Oct. 30, 2017, photo shows a portion of a small fishing boat that capsized while it was bound for Bangladesh, filled with Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on Sept. 28, 2017, on Inani beach in Cox's bazar, Bangladesh. The boat capsized just 1,000 feet (300 meters) from shore, taking the lives of at least 50 people, most of them children, in the deadliest tragedy of its kind since the crisis exploded in late August. They were part of the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War, a colossal tide of more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims whose homes had been torched by Buddhist mobs and soldiers. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

In this Sept. 30, 2017, photo tears roll down the cheeks of Rohingya man Alam Jafar as he recounts the story of his journey from Myanmar to Bangladesh, at a transit shelter at Kutupalong camp for newly arrived Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. In Myanmar, the 25-year-old farmer owned a verdant rice field, a boat that ferried passengers up and down the river and lived in a four-room house made of wood and bamboo surrounded by coconut and mango trees. When the mob came to his village on Sept. 25, Jafar had no choice but to flee with his wife and three children. The boat they were traveling on capsized on Sept. 28 and left him as the sole survivor in a family of 5. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

In this Oct. 1, 2017, photo Rohingya man Alam Jafar, second right, stands with other Rohingya refugees at a transit shelter at Kutupalong camp for newly arrived Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. In Myanmar, the 25-year-old farmer owned a verdant rice field, a boat that ferried passengers up and down the river and lived in a four-room house made of wood and bamboo surrounded by coconut and mango trees. When the mob came to his village on Sept. 25, Jafar had no choice but to flee with his wife and three children. On Sept. 28, the small fishing boat they were traveling in capsized while it was bound for Bangladesh and left him as the sole survivor of the family of 5. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

In this Oct. 1, 2017, photo, forty-year old Mohammad Kasim, from Moidaung Village in Myanmar, weeps at a transit shelter at Kutupalong camp for newly arrived Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Kasim's wife and two daughters drowned when the fishing boat they were traveling in capsized on Sept. 28, 2017. The boat capsized just 1,000 feet (300 meters) from shore, taking the lives of at least 50 people, most of them children, in the deadliest tragedy of its kind since the crisis exploded in late August. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

In this Oct. 1, 2017, photo, a Rohingya Muslim woman Malika, mourns as she is reunited with her daughter Nur Kaisha, foreground, and others who survived a boat capsize on Sept. 28, at Kutupalong camp for newly arrived Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Of the 80 refugees believed to have been on the fishing boat, carrying Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar, only 24 are known to have survived. Three of her children, aged six-months to six-years, drowned in the accident. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

In this Sept. 30, 2017 photo, Rohingya survivors of a boat capsize, Sona Mia, center, and Lalo Mia, right, sit in a room to meet administration officers at Kutupalong camp for newly arrived Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Lalo's wife, a son and a daughter drowned when the fishing boat they were traveling in while fleeing from Myanmar capsized on Sept. 28. Of the 80 refugees believed to have been on that boat, only 24 are known to have survived. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

In this Sept. 30, 2017, photo, Rohingya refugee survivors of a Sept. 28 boat capsize walk in a group to a registration center at Kutupalong camp for newly arrived Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The boat capsized just 1,000 feet (300 meters) from shore, taking the lives of at least 50 people, most of them children, in the deadliest tragedy of its kind since the crisis exploded in late August. They were part of the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War, a colossal tide of more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims whose homes had been torched by Buddhist mobs and soldiers. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

In this Oct. 1, 2017, photo, palm fronds stand in the dirt at a mass grave where Rohingya refugee victims of a Sept. 28 boat capsize lay buried in Ghunarmur Shikderpara, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. The boat capsized just 1,000 feet (300 meters) from shore, taking the lives of at least 50 people, most of them children, in the deadliest tragedy of its kind since the crisis exploded in late August. The mass grave lies in a clearing in a small coastal village lined with coconut trees and rice paddies. There are no names. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

In this Oct. 30, 2017, photo, Ahamed Hossain, an eye witness and a first-responder of a Sept. 28 boat capsize that killed Rohingya refugees, walks towards a portion of what remains of the wooden boat at Inani beach in Cox's bazar, Bangladesh. The boat capsized just 1,000 feet (300 meters) from shore, taking the lives of at least 50 people, most of them children, in the deadliest tragedy of its kind since the crisis exploded in late August. They were part of the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War, a colossal tide of more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims whose homes had been torched by Buddhist mobs and soldiers. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

In this Oct. 19, 2017, photo, a Rohingya Muslim man Alam Jafar, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, sits for a photograph outside his shelter in Thaingkhali refugee camp, Bangladesh, Cox's Bazar. In Myanmar, the 25-year-old farmer owned a verdant rice field, a boat that ferried passengers up and down the river and lived in a four-room house made of wood and bamboo surrounded by coconut and mango trees. When the mob came to his village on Sept. 25, Jafar had no choice but to flee with his wife and three children. On Sept. 28, the small fishing boat they were traveling in capsized while it was bound for Bangladesh and left him as the sole survivor of the family of 5. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Help Me! Boy cries as Rohingya boat fleeing Myanmar capsizes

Help Me! Boy cries as Rohingya boat fleeing Myanmar capsizes

Help Me! Boy cries as Rohingya boat fleeing Myanmar capsizes

By TODD PITMAN

Oct. 27, 2017

https://www.apnews.com/81d012434c774328b47dca7c56bf81e8

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INANI BEACH, Bangladesh (AP) — Across the ferocious waves and the churning black water, Alam Jafar could see his frantic seven-year-old son gasping for breath, his arms flailing just above the ocean's surface.

It was raining, and a fierce monsoon storm had transformed the sky and the sea into a kaleidoscope of gray shadows that was impossible to escape. The little boy was crying out louder than he ever had in his life. He did not know how to swim.

"Papa! Papa! Help Me!"

"Papaaaaa."

Just moments before, they had huddled together in the relative safety of a small fishing boat filled with refugees from Myanmar that was bound for Bangladesh. They were part of the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War — a colossal tide of more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims whose homes had been torched by Buddhist mobs and soldiers.

What happened next, just 1,000 feet (300 meters) from shore, would take the lives of at least 50 people, most of them children, in the deadliest tragedy of its kind since the crisis exploded in late August. Through interviews with more than a dozen survivors, The Associated Press has reconstructed their ill-fated journey late last month — an odyssey that underscores the perils faced by all those who flee.

For Jafar, the most haunting part was not when the wave "as big as a mountain" swallowed everything in the blink of an eye.

It was the moment after, when he surfaced in shock vomiting saltwater, and heard the cries of the people who had been hurled into the dark mouth of the sea.

His wife of eight years and their newborn twins were among them.

So, too, was his beloved son.

"Papa! Papa! Help Me!"

"Papaaaaa."

___

Short and stocky with a fiery temper, Jafar grew up in a small village in northwestern Myanmar called Moidaung.

It was a quiet place of immense beauty: Emerald rice fields. Lush mountains. A river that snaked through the land. For the Rohingya, though, it was also a prison. They could not travel without consent from authorities, and the northern half of Rakhine state was largely off-limits to outsiders.

Although the Rohingya had inhabited the region for generations, the country's Buddhist majority saw them as foreign invaders from Bangladesh. The government denied them citizenship and basic rights; the United Nations called them the most persecuted minority in the world.

Despite their plight, Jafar had managed to do well for himself. The 25-year-old farmer lived in a four-room house made of wood and bamboo surrounded by coconut and mango trees. He owned a verdant rice field, and a boat that ferried passengers up and down the river.

In 2009, he married the love of his life, Tayiba Khatun, after saving enough to pay her dowry in gold: a necklace, a pair of earrings, and a small nose-ring. A year later, they had a son, Mohamed Zobair, an energetic boy who loved soccer and school.

Mohamed learned to read not only Burmese, but English as well, and Jafar could not resist spoiling him. He bought whatever the boy wanted every time they went to the market.

In July, their family grew once more. Khatun gave birth to twins, a boy named Yasin and a girl, Noor Khaida. The twins' big brown eyes melted their hearts. But the happiness was short-lived.

On Aug. 25, Rohingya insurgents armed with rifles and machetes attacked dozens of police posts and an army base. The military responded with a ruthless counter-offensive, and mobs backed by security forces began setting entire Rohingya villages ablaze.

Word came to Moidaung of children shot and women raped. Too afraid even to venture into their fields, the Rohingya in Moidaung cowered in their homes.

When ethnic Rakhine Buddhists began marching into the village with sharpened bamboo sticks and machetes, escorted by soldiers, Jafar and his wife watched from a window in their home.

"This is Buddhist land!" the men shouted. "It does not belong to you!

"Get out! Get out!"

Two days later, just before dawn on Sept. 25, the mobs came back.

Woken by the crackle of gunfire and screams in the distance, Jafar looked outside and saw flames and smoke rising on the far end of Moidaung. Whole families had already begun fleeing on foot, carrying everything they could in huge plastic sacks.

"How can we just leave everything behind?" Khatun asked.

Jafar tried to console her, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

"We have no choice," he whispered. "We can't stay here. Our belongings are not going to save our lives."

___

The road leading out of the village was overflowing with an endless stream of families — hysterical parents carrying children, exhausted children hauling babies on their backs.

Jafar's family joined them, and word soon passed down the line. There was a beach where refugees were boarding boats for Bangladesh. To get there, they would have to cross the forested spine of the Mayu mountains.

The pathway up was slippery from the monsoon rains, and they moved slowly, grabbing onto saplings jutting out of the ground. Many of the refugees were barefoot, including Jafar's eldest son, Mohamed.

Wearing only a cheap pair of flip-flops, Jafar struggled to carry the twins, who were cradled in a pair of sacks that hung on opposite sides of a stick across his shoulders.

His wife carried another sack filled with children's clothes, food and a mosquito net. Inside it was all their gold, the deed to their property, and all their savings — about $225.

Fifteen minutes into the forest, they began to smell something nauseating.

Jafar's brother, Sona Mia, saw the bodies first.

The bloated corpse of a man with a wide gash in his throat lay staring up at the sky. A few meters (yards) further on, another dead man was curled on the ground, white foam bubbling from his mouth.

It was unclear who they were, or who killed them. Mia counted seven in all.

"Nobody stopped," Mia said. "Nobody said a word. We couldn't. We just kept going."

Far behind them, on the edge of the forest, a volley of gunshots rang out.

They hiked for two days, scooping cold water from streams and sleeping on the ground. After reaching the bottom of the mountain, the greenery gave way to roads, and they passed the remains of an empty village blackened by fire.

On the morning of Sept. 27, they finally spotted the coast — where the mouth of the Naf River, separating Myanmar from Bangladesh, opens into the Bay of Bengal.

Jafar had never seen the ocean before. It seemed infinite, and to him, unreal.

It also gave him hope. He thought the hardest part of their journey was over.

___

On the beach in Alel Than Kyaw, the massive scale of the exodus became apparent.

Thousands of refugees from other parts of Rakhine were already camped there, exhausted. Each family had a story to tell, of a village burned, a husband shot, a wife raped.

Makeshift tents were scattered across the beach, which was littered with trash and the abandoned clothes of those who preceded them. Dozens of soldiers wandered among the crowds, interrogating the men.

Jafar found a spot to sit, and Khatun rested her head on his shoulder while their children played in the sand.

In his stomach, Jafar could feel a huge knot. Just a few days earlier, he had owned land and a house and provided for his family. Now, all that was gone.

A few hours after nightfall, a dozen fishing boats suddenly appeared, their distinctive bows and sterns each curved upward like wooden bull horns. Jafar and his family jumped to their feet and rushed forward with the crowds.

The boatmen, from Bangladesh, told the refugees they had been sent by "your relatives" — Muslim nations — "to take you across the river."

One of them pointed at Jafar.

"How many?"

"Five."

The boatman counted off about 75 more people, including as many as 50 children, and told the adults they had to leave their luggage behind. Jafar tucked the gold he had given his wife as a dowry into a small plastic bottle cap, then wrapped her pink veil around it in a knot. He stuffed their cash and land deed into the other end.

They waded into the warm water and climbed inside a 20-foot-long boat with outer planks painted light blue with white trim.

They found a spot in the rear, and scrunched down together, the twins in their arms and Mohamed huddled between. They were pressed together body to body, knee to chest. The boat was packed.

Several refugees not among those chosen grabbed onto the bow, begging to be let aboard. A boatman shoved them away.

When the engine started and they pulled away, the sea was calm. A crescent moon hung in a clear sky.

Khatun squeezed Jafar's hand. It seemed as good a time as any to make the crossing.

The southern tip of Bangladesh was only about 10 kilometers (6 miles) away.

___

At first no one spoke. The only sound was that of waves crashing against the boat's wooden hull, and wind whipping across its bow.

Jafar kept checking his watch.

One hour passed. Then two.

By then, he knew they should have arrived. But when he raised his head to peek over the edge, there was nothing to see but darkness.

"Mazi, what are you doing?" a passenger called out, using the local word for boatman. "Why aren't we there?"

"Shut up, you illiterate," one of the boatmen shot back. "Do you know how to steer this thing better than me?"

Jafar was not worried. He thought they might have taken a longer route to avoid Bangladeshi naval patrols or border guards ashore.

Over the next few hours, though, the weather grew steadily worse. Clouds began to obscure the stars. The wind began to pick up. And the air, once hot and sticky, grew chilly.

One by one, the refugees began to notice that the water, which had no perceptible scent at the mouth of the river, now smelled bitter. It was saltwater. Something had gone terribly wrong. They were at sea.

As the waves grew, small children began throwing up. Then the adults, vomiting into their clothes and cupped hands. Jafar felt ill.

When someone asked the mazi how much further they had to go, the response was blunt, emotionless.

As the boat rocked endlessly back and forth, they drifted in and out of sleep. And then they were startled to hear one of the mazis, wide-eyed, yelling.

"It's there! It's there!"

Jafar thought he was dreaming. But when he lifted his cramped body up he saw it, too: the top of a green hill peeking out of white clouds on a coast.

No one knew what country it was.

No one cared.

For the first time since they fled their village, Jafar saw people smile. Their two-hour trip turned into 18 might finally be about to end.

His wife squeezed their children.

"Oh, blessed Allah, he knows where we are," Khatun said. "Maybe we will be OK. Maybe we will get there."

As the boat motored toward the shore, though, the wind began to pick up again. The sky darkened. Torrential sheets of rain began to fall.

And then, somewhere around 3:30 p.m., the engine died.

___

Standing in front of his store on Inani Beach, shopkeeper Ahmed Hossain saw what he thought was a fishing boat emerge from the storm.

He knew it shouldn't have been there. The monsoon battering the coast was so large and powerful, it had already shut down the airport at Cox's Bazar, 30 kilometers (20 miles) to the north.

Out on the boat, the refugees didn't know if they had run out of fuel, or if the engine had broken down.

As one of the mazis yanked the engine cord repeatedly, people began reciting final prayers and crying out.

"Please Allah! Please save us!"

The desperation angered the crew, and they shouted at the refugees.

"Shut up! Shut up! Stop it!"

Without power, the boat was at the mercy of the waves, which tossed it around like a toy. Although the shoreline was just a few hundred yards (meters) away, most of the children aboard did not know how to swim.

The boat drifted into a precarious position: perpendicular to the waves, which were now tipping it perilously back and forth.

When the giant wave hit, it thrust the boat upside down. It threw Jafar into the surging ocean with the twins, who were wrapped around his chest in a longyi.

Arms thrashing, he surfaced, trying to keep their heads above water. He could barely see, but he spotted his wife, and his son. He heard Mohamed crying out.

"Papa! Papa! Help Me!"

"Papaaaaa."

They were not far away, maybe 10 feet, when the second wave crashed down. He lost sight of them as the swirling ocean carried him away.

For half an hour, Jafar struggled to swim on his back in the current. But the waves and the weight of the twins kept pushing him down. He didn't know if they were dead.

He was exhausted. When he realized he would drown if he held on to them any longer, he untied the longyi, and let go of his babies.

By the time he crawled onto the beach and collapsed, it was twilight. A stranger rushed forward and knelt beside him, asking if he was OK.

"Where am I?" Jafar asked weakly.

"Brother," the man said. "You are in Bangladesh."

________

That night, Jafar searched desperately for Khatun and Mohamed and the twins.

When he found their bodies, laid out on the sand by rescuers, he broke down and wept.

He says he can barely remember any more about that moment. He can hardly even speak of it.

Of the 80 refugees believed to have been on the boat when it capsized on Sept. 28, only 24 are known to have survived.

Police collected 23 corpses from the shore. The rest — mostly children — are missing and presumed to have drowned. It is not known what happened to the crew.

Khatun's scarf, with the gold, money and land deed, was never found.

___

It is two weeks after the disaster, and Jafar is slicing bamboo poles to build a shelter on the edge of a new refugee camp.

His older brother, who was also on the boat, is beside him. But he cannot bear to be here without his own family.

Sleep brings nightmares. Daylight brings ghosts.

"Wherever I look, I see my kids," he says. "I see my eldest child every day. He comes and sits in front of me, even now."

Jafar can't stop thinking about what happened. He feels helpless, overcome with guilt.

"Why did I bring my children here and let them die in the water?" he asks. "Wouldn't it have been nice if I, too, had died? Wouldn't it?"

The mass grave where his wife and children are buried is not far away.

It lies in a clearing in a small coastal village lined with coconut trees and rice paddies.

There are no names. Just a trio of palm fronds stuck in the dirt like tombstones.

From there, it's a short walk to the place where the doomed boat washed ashore the night it capsized. It was ripped in half.

Two weeks later, nothing is left. Even the smallest wooden planks have been dragged away by the tides.

___

POSTSCRIPT: Bangladesh says 28 boats carrying Rohingya refugees have capsized in its waters since August, killing at least 184 people. Despite calls to end the violence in Myanmar, the exodus continues.